Progress bar on IE6

I have this website where when a user comes in, a lot of files get downloaded (.class ).
It takes a while, and as of now there is no visual indication to the user indicating the status of download.
As a matter of fact, the user doesnt even that there is something being downloaded in the background.
So, what they see is a browser window that doesnt do a whole lot.
I would like to show a progress bar kinda thing. I figured out how to show a progress bar(thanks to javaranch search feature).
However, from what I have seen, the progress bar is being displayed as an applet, which means the progress bar
won't show up on IE 6 by default. I can't expect all of my users to have JRE. How can I get around this.

If the class files are going to run in IE's Java VM, pack the files into a cab archive and download this instead. IE will then display a progress bar on the bottom just like it does when downloading a large image.
For more information on and tools for packing class files into a cab archive, get the MS Java SDK from http://www.microsoft.com/java/
If these class files will be running in the plug-in, the new JDK 1.4.0 plugin shows a progress bar (at least it did in the betas, I haven't tried it out in the release version).

Another suggestion would to take a more simplest approach.
Have an intermediate page that loads prior to your "long loading" task that gives some sort of visual indication to the user what is happening.
The intermediate page could say at minimum "Page is loading, please wait..." or you could find some sort of nifty animated gif to keep the user distracted.
James.

Thanks james, I'm working on your idea. But I'm not quite sure when to stop the "page loading" message. How do I know, if the download of the big jar is completed?

Hi Rex,
Here is some basic code to get the idea across.
Servlet1 submits to Servlet2
Servlet2 is the intermediate page that provides the user with some feed back
and submits that data onto Servlet3
Servlet3 does the actual work (in this case download your applet etc)
Servlet2 is hacked in JavaScript but could be changed to use some other sort of request forwarding technique.

package mypackage;
import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
/**
 * Test Servlet1
 */
public class Servlet1 extends HttpServlet {
    public void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) throws ServletException, IOException {
        
        PrintWriter out = res.getWriter();
        
        res.setContentType("text/html");
        
        out.println("<html>");
        
        out.println("<head>");
        out.println("  <title>Servlet1</title>"); 
        out.println("</head>");
      
        out.println("<body>");
        out.println("  <h1>Submit long running query</h1>");
        out.println("  <form name=\"form1\" method=\"get\" action=\"/Servlet2\">");
        out.println("    <input type=\"text\" name=\"input1\"><br>");
        out.println("    <input type=\"text\" name=\"input2\"><br>");
        out.println("    <input type=\"text\" name=\"input3\"><br>");
        out.println("    <input type=\"submit\">");
        out.println("  </form>");
      out.println("</body>");
      
    out.println("</html>");
    }
    public void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) throws ServletException, IOException {
        doPost(req,res);
    }
}

package mypackage;
import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
/**
 * Test Servlet2
 */
public class Servlet2 extends HttpServlet {
    public void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) throws ServletException, IOException {
        
        PrintWriter out = res.getWriter();
        
        res.setContentType("text/html");
        
        out.println("<html>");
        
        out.println("<head>");
        out.println("  <title>Servlet2</title>");
        out.println("</head>");
      
        out.println("<body>");
        out.println("  <h1>running, please wait...</h1>");
        out.println("  <script language=\"JavaScript\">");
    out.println("  ");
        out.println("  </script>");
      out.println("</body>");
      
    out.println("</html>"); 
    }
    public void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) throws ServletException, IOException {
        doPost(req,res);
    }
}

package mypackage;
import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
/**
 * Test Servlet3
 */
public class Servlet3 extends HttpServlet {
    public void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) throws ServletException, IOException {
        
PrintWriter out = res.getWriter();

res.setContentType("text/html");
        
        try {
            // simulate long running query by sleeping for 10 secs
Thread.sleep(1000 * 10);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
        
        out.println("<html>");
        
        out.println("<head>");
        out.println("  <title>Servlet3</title>");
        out.println("</head>"); 
        out.println("<body>");
        out.println("  <h1>query results</h1>");
        out.println("  <h4>input1=" + req.getParameter("input1") + "</h4>");
        out.println("  <h4>input2=" + req.getParameter("input2") + "</h4>");
        out.println("  <h4>input3=" + req.getParameter("input3") + "</h4>");
      out.println("</body>");
      
    out.println("</html>"); 
    }
    public void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) throws ServletException, IOException {
        doPost(req,res);
    }
}

The code might some tweaking to compile

James.

Hi,

Even I have the same requirement.

In the servlet2.java which code says that the request is being posted to servlet3.